Imagine winding the hour hand of a clock back from 3 o’clock to noon. Mathematicians have long known how to describe this rotation as a simple multiplication: A number representing the initial ...

Imagine winding the hour hand of a clock back from 3 o’clock to noon. Mathematicians have long known how to describe this rotation as a simple multiplication: A number representing the initial ...

In 1843, William Rowan Hamilton had a four-dimensional flash of insight that still shapes our three-dimensional world. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.

Real numbers are, in fact, pretty much any number that you can think of. This can include whole numbers or integers, fractions, rational numbers and irrational numbers. Real numbers can be positive or ...